Positive Quiddity: Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom, CBE (born 15 February 1931) is an English film and stage actress whose career has spanned over six decades. She is famous for leading roles in plays such as Streetcar Named Desire, A Doll’s House and Long Day’s Journey into Night, and has starred in nearly sixty films.

After an uprooted and unstable childhood in war-torn England, Bloom studied drama, which became her passion. She had her debut on the London stage when she was sixteen, and soon took roles in various Shakespeare plays. They included Hamlet, where she played Ophelia alongside Richard Burton, with whom she would have a "long and stormy" first love affair. For her Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, critic Kenneth Tynan stated it was “the best Juliet I've ever seen.” And after starring as Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire, its playwright, Tennessee Williams, was "exultant," stating, "I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom."

In 1952, Bloom was discovered by Hollywood film star Charlie Chaplin, who had been searching for months for an actress with "beauty, talent, and a great emotional range," to co-star alongside him in Limelight. It became Bloom's film debut and made her into an international film star. During her lengthy film career, she starred alongside numerous major actors, including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, Ralph Richardson, Yul Brynner, George C. Scott, James Mason, Paul Newman and Rod Steiger, whom she would marry.

In 2010, Bloom played the role of Queen Mary in the British film, The King’s Speech, and she currently acts in British films. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to drama.

Film

Bloom's first film role was a small part in the 1948 film The Blind Goddess. She trained at the Rank Organisation’s “charm school”, but did not stay with that company for long.

Her first international screen debut came in the 1952 film, Limelight. She was chosen by Charlie Chaplin, who also directed, to co-star alongside him in Limelight, a film which catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles. Biographer Dan Kamin states that Limelight is a similar story to Chaplin's City Lights, made twenty years earlier, where Chaplin also helps a heroine overcome a physical handicap. In this film, Bloom plays a suicidal ballerina who "suffers from hysterical paralysis."

She was subsequently featured in a number of "costume" roles in films such as Alexander the Great (1956), The Brothers Karamazov (1958), The Buccaneer (1958), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). Bloom also appeared in Laurence Olivier’s film version of Richard III (1955), where she played Lady Anne, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1973), The Outrage (1964) with Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey, as well as the films Look Back in Anger (1956) and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), both with Richard Burton. Of Bloom's character in Spy, novelist David Plante writes that "Claire's refined beauty appears to be one with the refinement of a culture she represents as an actress…"

In the 1960s she began to play more contemporary roles, including an unhinged housewife in The Chapman Report, a psychologist in the Oscar winning film Charly, and Theodora in The Haunting. She also appeared in the Woody Allen films Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Mighty Aphrodite (1995). She played Hera in Clash of the Titans. Laurence Olivier played Zeus, her husband; she had also played his wife, Queen Anne in Richard III (1955). Her most recent appearance in a Hollywood film was her portrayal of Queen Mary of Teck in the 2010 film The King’s Speech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Bloom